reetings
to all the Gremlins out there! I have to say that I am
very excited to have accidentally broken in the exciting field of the
manufacture of garage kits. I have been sculpting original fantasy
figures for a number of years now, but until recently it hadn't occured
to me to try to reproduce and market any of them. I'm not even sure if I
could. The pieces I do are made for relatives and special people in my
life, and each one is very personal. But many people have encouraged me
to make some that I could sell, and what with the introduction I am
getting to casting in resin, which I find very interesting, I might very
well do just that.

The main source for my current inspiration is an article by Mike
James in the latest issue of Kit Builders Magazine, in which he details
the construction and casting of his most recent and remarkable piece,
Angelissa, an angel and sister to Sedusa (both of which are originals and
licensed by Mike). What struck me as I eagerly poured over the article
was the similarity between his sculpting process and mine. All this
time, I thought what I was doing was just the best an amateur could do
with a hobby that engaged him, and here I find a well known professional
using the very same methods and materials and creating some wonderful and
marketable pieces.

To make a long story short(er), I contacted Mike James of Azimuth
Design in New York, and he supplied me with a lot of useful information
on casting, and put me onto the Gremlin Net. As a result, now having
"met" Denis Bohm, and talking to him about my interests, and on his
encouragement, I am writing this article on the sculpting of an original
piece from Super Sculpey, including what will hopefully be useful
information for all of you out there who may have been interested in
doing an original of your own, but may not be quite sure of how to go
about it. I won't include anything on casting, as that is too new to me,
and there are probably many of you who already know how that is done, or
know of a production house that would cast your piece for you. And if you
haven't checked out Mike's article in KB, please do so, you will find it
very informative. And while you might find his skill and final product
rather daunting, remember, we all start somewhere and sometime, and here
and now would be a great place for you to start.

Here we go. There are two basic approaches I have used, and I'll
address them both as best I can, hoping one or the other will work for
you. The first involves a concept for a figure that you have pictured in
your imagination very clearly. If you are handy with a pencil, start
making rough drawings to work out the details and give yourself a sort of
blueprint or plan to follow, something to keep you on track. Or if your
inspiration comes from a photograph or comic or someone else's work, you
already have a pretty concrete plan right there in front of you. Of
course, please respect any copyrights or licenses that the original
artist might have.

If your blueprint is clear enough, you may be able to construct an
armature right from the measurements you take off the picture. If the
drawing is not quite of the right scale, just take it to the ol' Xerox
amd reduce or enlarge it to whatever size you want. If you can't draw,
then skip this step. It is helpful, but not necessary.

For those of you who are new to this, an armature is anything around
which you place the clay that supports the work and helps define it.
For the purposes of constructing a figure, the armature is a frame or
"skeleton" usually made of wire that will serve as the guide for the pose
and its internal support. Don't even try a piece of any reasonable size
without one. You will pay in frustration later for any short cut you try
to take at this stage.

The size of the wire, or guage, will depend on the size of the piece
for the most part. For a piece that is approximately 1/6 scale, I find
that a wire around 1/8 inch, more or less, works well. It is workable,
and will hold a pose easily, while also allowing for adjustments along
the way as you continue to work on the figure.

You can all draw a stick figure, just make one out of the wire.
Don't worry about the pose until the proportions are correct. Again,
check them against your drawing or picture, or just use your own eye. If
is looks about right, it probably is. And if you are doing a monster or
some sort of fantasy creature, you almost can't go wrong as far as
proportions go. Use smaller wire to bind the arms and legs to the torso,
or use one long piece to make the arm-body-leg section of one side, then
make a matching one for the other side. Bind these two together, then
make a small looped piece for the head, leaving a long "neck" on it that
you can then bind to the torso. I find this allows me to adjust that
always difficult neck length. Also, leave plenty of extra wire coming
out past where you think the hands and feet will be - you can always cut
it off later, and extra wire at the feet will allow you to bury it in a
base, should you decide to add one later. If you are not using a base,
you can at least stick the extra wire down into a shoebox lid, so you can
stand the figure up there while you are not working on it, rather than
laying it down and smashing your hard work.

Often then I will wrap the armature with aluminum foil, squeezing
and twisting it around the wire. This gives the Sculpey something to
hold on to, and adding more foil, building up the torso, hips, head, and
upper legs and arms a little will allow you to use less clay and help you
begin to see the figure a bit more clearly.

I have made free-standing pieces and ones that were on a base, and
this is the point where this decision should be made. Free-standing
figures need to be balanced carefully in the pose, while ones on a base
can be at nearly impossible angles - up on one foot, leaning into a fast
run, or even "flying", apparently free, at first glance, of the base
altogether. Even if the piece will eventually be free-standing, you can
extend the leg wires well past the feet, secure them to a temporary base,
then you will be able to work the piece without having to constantly be
careful about how you handle the body. You will remove this base after
the piece is cooked.

While adjusting the pose, use one of your best resources... yourself.
(Or another willing subject). Investigate your own body mechanics.
How far up your chest does your knee come when you bend it?
About to the shoulder? Bend your arm at the elbow and touch your
shoulder, noting the length of your upper and lower arm, and how your
hand fits into the triangle there. Where does your elbow touch your
waist? What's the relationship of the length of your upper leg to the
length of your lower arm from elbow to the tip of your extended fingers?
Have you ever noticed that your foot is about the length of the inside of
your forearm? How wide are your shoulders compared to your forearm?
Measure everything. You may get some weird looks while doing
this, but your body is the best teacher of anatomy that you have.
Spend some time with it.

So... all posed now and ready for the clay. I use Super Sculpey.
This is a sculpting compound, relatively inexpensive (between $7 and $9
for a one-pound box), that is available in most of your local hobby or
craft stores, and it cooks in your home oven at 275 degrees, so you don't
need a special oven or anything like that. You may notice a slight odor
as it cooks - this is no big deal. And unless you over-cook it, it won't
change colors either. The instructions say to cook it 15 minutes for
each quarter inch of thickness, but if I had followed this, I would have
burned some of the pieces I've made right to the ground. I
usually start with 20 minutes, then check how the surface of the clay
feels every 5 minutes or so. Super Sculpey, before it's cooked, feels
sort of moist and rubbery, and then changes to a distinctly dry feel like
unglazed ceramic after it's cooked. Even when it's finished it will feel
a little flexible while it's still hot, but will become rigid when it
cools. It's just going to take some time to learn, but this product is
pretty forgiving. Regular Sculpey, the white kind, burns and smokes a
bit, and will bubble up easily if you are not very careful about not
trapping air under the layers. I have never had this problem with Super
Sculpey. I have never tried Sculpey III.

I actually have a number of tools, but the one I use the most, aside
from the ones I am using to write this, is this little metal cuticle
thing I stole from my wife's nail polish basket. It is about three
inches long, with one end kind of arrow-head shaped, while the other end
flattens out into a sort of little rectangular spade. Every once in a
great while, I will pick up a dental tool, but for what I use it for, a
toothpick would work just as well.

Super Sculpey is roughly an acceptable human caucasian flesh tone,
and will actually, once cooked and sanded and buffed, give you a very
nice, deep, naturally alive looking skin. Most of you will pobably be
painting, so the finish will not matter that much. If you will not be
painting however, here's an important hint: Keep Your Hands Clean! The
Sculpey will pick up dirt and oil from your hands and fingers, and you
will not be able to get it out later.

Begin applying the Sculpey, in small amounts, all over the
armature. Take care to press the clay well onto the wire or foil, and
smooth and blend the small lumps into each other, trying to eliminate any
gaps and cracks between them. Apply it over the entire armature evenly.
This will also help you to begin to see the shape better, and you can
make adjustments as you go. It is NEVER too late to make adjustments in
the pose, even after the piece is cooked. If you want, you can lop off
an arm or leg to change the position, cut the neck to turn or tip the
head, saw through the waist to adjust the turn of the shoulders and hips,
whatever. There are any number of model fillers that can cover joints
and gaps, and with a little sand paper, you can make a mistake look like
you planned it that way.

Remember, at this point you aren't going for a human (or monstrous)
shape, you are just filling out the armature. Once it's done, you can
either cook it as it is, giving you a more stable frame, or proceed to
add even more clay. I have done it both ways, and for me they work
equally well. The advantage to Sculpey is that you can add to it and
cook it more, as long as you don't over do it. It also is pretty
user-friendly in that you can work it for several days, and it won't dry
out and crack, as long as the frame is strong enough to support the
weight of the clay. I keep pieces I'm working on covered with a plactic
grocery bag just to keep dust off them.

One thing that works for me while I am doing a piece is to work it
fairly evenly all over, not letting one part get highly detailed before
the others are halfway done. This is because the proportions need to
work together, and it is also easier for your eye to follow the growth of
the piece if that development is even and gradual, rather than having one
beautifully finished leg on a skeleton body. However, some people can
work this way, and I say more power to them. Find out what works for you.

Another tip, keep turning the piece, working at it from all sides at
the same time. Many people have some difficulty seeing the entirety of a
three-dimensional mass all at once, but most can see an outline or
profile much more easily. If you keep shaping the profiles, and keep
turning the piece, you will find that before long you can see more and
more of the three-dimensional mass, and you haven't really tried to
sculpt it.

Also, don't be cautious. Think about it; what's the worst that can
happen if all of a sudden you find you've made the head too big, or the
nose is in the wrong place? Nothing. Most of you will probably be
sculpting monsters anyway, so who cares? For those of you that will be
doing human, you still don't need to be particularly careful until the
end, and remember, mistakes are easy to fix. For those of you who, like
myself, are sculpting the female form, you will need to take more care,
but really only in the final phases. So get some clay on there, push it
around, find out what it will and will not do. And just in case you're
wondering, it will do just about anything, once you really get to know it.

One of the greatest contemporary sculptors I know, Bruno Lucchesi,
says this about sculpting, "If you can see, you can do." Step back from
your piece frequently, walk around it, turn it upside down, whatever.
Look at it from as many angles as you can. You have been looking at the
human form for many years now, just keep comparing those images with the
one you see developing in front of you. Mr. Lucchesi's point is that
your eye is probably your most valuable tool. Take your time, breathe,
take a lot of breaks, and if you don't feel like working, stop. Coming
back later will give you a fresh perspective.

Don't feel that you have to know a great deal about human anatomy
before you get started. You will learn about that as you go along, and
you probably know more about it than you think. The main thing is to
just get started, and enjoy yourself. Another thing, no matter how much
you do this sort of thing, no piece will ever turn out exactly like you
envisioned it. You will forever be frustrated if you try to see the
piece in front of you for what it "should be", but you may be pleasantly
surprised if you let yourself see the piece for what it is.

Try to simplify shapes as you begin. Arms and legs are basically
cylinders, slightly tapered. Work in the pinches and bulges later.
Head - a ball or egg shape. Hips - a rectangular prism, rounded out later.
Mid-section - another cylinder, very short and wide, perhaps flattened out
from the front to the back. Upper torso - another rectangular prism,
bigger than the hip one, and maybe a littler larger at the top.
Neck - another cylinder. Feet - small triangular prisms laying on their
sides (not on the triangular side). Hands - flattened out cubes or
rectangles, with cylinder fingers attached.

Now, if you stick to that and put all those pieces together, you
will end up with something that looks like a big, chunky robot. Cool!
What's wrong with that? It might actually be a lot of fun for a first
project. Do it, cook it, then you'll have something to point at and say
"Yeah, I sculpted that!" It might be rough, but at least you've
started. If you want, you can certainly round out the shapes and blend
them before you cook the piece, or grab the whole thing with both hands,
give it a squeeze, letting it squish out between your fingers, then cook
that and you'll end up with some kind of mutant thing or other that you
couldn't have imagined even if you tried! Have fun. The ultimate details
depend on the gender of the piece, how realistic or fantastic it is, and
mostly, what looks good to you. Some details require more attention than
others, and every sculptor has some area that always challenges them.
Try to avoid copying someone else's piece, or you will always be
measuring your success against how someone else has defined it. Discover
and develop your own style, do what pleases you. And observe, observe,
observe.

When I started this article, I mentioned two basic methods that have
worked for me. All the information above applies to both methods, the
only difference in the second one is the armature. Instead of making the
wire skeleton, I take a sheet of foil and tear it part way up from one
end to about the middle, then make a tear in form each side, up near the
top edge, about a third of the way in. Then I squeeze these areas into
skinny arms and legs, and just sort of mash the middle part into a
torso. For the head, I make a ball out of foil and stick it on a piece
of wire, which I push down into the torso. Now I just start to play with
the pose, letting the armature tell me what it wants to be, and I
continue this approach even well into the application of the clay. The
piece speaks to me as I work it, and I notice a definate personality the
more time I spend. It should be noted that this is a much more
subjective approach, and works best for smaller pieces. Usually I mix
the two methods, but it's sort of neat to start a piece without a firm
idea of what it will look like when it is finished.

The main thing I've been trying to do is to encourage you to give
this sculpting thing a shot. Ultimately, there is no one way
to do this. Everyone finds what works best for them. The only
difference is that some of us have started, and some haven't yet. So what
are you waiting for?

P.S. You can find me on the Gremlin mailing list, so buzz me if you have
questions or comments.

The Gremlins in the Garage webzine is a production of
Firefly Design. If you have any questions or comments please
get in touch.